Massachusetts Genealogy, With a Focus on Mayflower Families & Other Early Settlers of Plymouth & Barnstable Counties

Welcome! I really enjoy exchanging information with people and hope this blog will help with that. I am not an expert and I consider most of my research as a work in progress. Some of the surnames I'm researching:

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Benjamin Booth, born 1667, and Mary Sutton, born 1666, of Scituate and Middleborough, Mass.

Benjamin Booth was born Scituate, Mass., on 4
July 1667, the son of John and Elizabeth (Granger) Booth. I wrote about John and
Elizabeth here. Benjamin is my
9th great-grandfather on my grandfather Arthur Washburn Davis’ side
of the family. He is not related to my Booth family on my grandmother’s side of
the family who were Canadian and Anglo-Irish.

In 1690 Benjamin married Mary Sutton. She was
born Scituate 22 January 1665/6, daughter of John and Elizabeth (House/Howes)
Sutton of Hingham and Scituate. His brother, Joseph, impregnated Mary Sutton,
but he left town instead of marrying her as was custom. Benjamin must have been
a very responsible person as he then married Mary Sutton.

On 26 October 1686 Mary Sutton confessed to
"committing fornication with Joseph Booth" and was sentenced to pay five pounds
or be publicly whipped. I hope her father had the five pounds to pay to spare
her the pain and indignity. "Mary Sutton of Sittuate made oath before the Court
that Joseph Booth of Sittuate is the only father of the child she late bore in
the world."

Depiction of a whipping post

Their children were born Scituate (recorded
Scituate VRs): Naomi Booth born 31 July 1691Rachel Booth born 5 May 1693Hannah Booth born 1 May 1696Benjamin Booth born 19 July 1698John Booth born 16 September 1700Isaiah Booth born 10 March 1702/03

I descend from Naomi Booth who married Thomas
Pierce.

An old postcard of Scituate Harbor

A deed dated 26 March 1709 has grantors
Benjamin Booth and wife Mary relinquish "all our estate rights" on all property
in Scituate or elsewhere to "our brother, John Sutton," previously held by "our
brother, Nathan, late of Scituate, deceased..." The evidence in
this deed positively identifies Benjamin's first wife as Mary Sutton, born 22
January 1665/6, the daughter of John 2 Sutton (John1) of Hingham and Scituate
and his wife, Elizabeth (House). This marriage (dated about 1690)
casts doubt on Torrey's reported earlier marriage (ca 1687) of the same Mary
Sutton to Benjamin's older brother, Joseph. No evidence has been found
supporting that marriage, which would have made the marriage of Benjamin to Mary
incestuous. It may have been based on an assumption made from the 1686 Plymouth
County court records of the sentencing of these two un-wed people for being
parents of an illegitimate child. Joseph Booth left Plymouth County before 1690,
settling on land in Kent County, Pennsylvania (now Sussex County, Delaware) and
marrying there in 1690.

No evidence has been found of Mary's
illegitimate child surviving to adulthood. Joseph was ordered in 1686 to pay
child support for seven years. Perhaps the child died young, releasing Joseph of
his obligation.

Mary Sutton Booth died sometime after 26 March
1709 (signed quitclaim deed), probably at Middleborough. Benjamin married, second, about 1719 Hannah
Stoughton. She was born Taunton, Mass. on 4 July 1679, the daughter of Nicholas
and Elizabeth (Knapp) Stoughton. Although their marriage was not recorded, it is
proven through two deeds concerning Benjamin and Hannah Booth and her late
father Nicholas Stoughton and her brother Samuel Stoughton who was missing and
presumed dead.

Benjamin and Hannah had two known sons: Samuel
and Anthony. Their birth records haven’t been found, but they are known to be
Hannah’s sons from relationships given in deeds outlined below.

Hannah died between 9 April 1725 (birth of last
child) and 26 March 1745 (husband gifted homestead to son), probably at
Middleborough.

Benjamin served on several juries. In 1708 as
Benjamin Booth, Scituate Husbandman, he brought a case against Mary Bacon, which
originally went her way but he won on appeal. Also that year, Thomas Jenkins
sued Benjamin Booth, which Benjamin won for an award of more than 13 pounds. In
1720 Benjamin Booth and Isaac Pearce defaulted on a suit against them pertaining
to a mortgage of land in Middleborough.

Map showing locations of Scituate and Middleborough

John Booth, Benjamin's father, did not leave a
will but while living deeded his land to his sons John, Benjamin and
Abraham.Benjamin was deeded 25 acres in Conihasset (I believe
this is an area in Scituate). He was to pay his sisters 2 pounds 10 shillings
each, under the same conditions as his brother John Jr. In 1709, Benjamin (of
Scituate) and his siblings received payment of over 7 pounds each from their
brother John Booth for land that had been their father's.

Benjamin Booth died at Middleborough between 26
March 1745 (deed of his homestead as a gift to son John) and 9 April 1746 (heirs
signed quitclaim deed to settle the estate of their deceased brother Samuel).

The deed states that the several "elder
brothers (and sisters) of the half blood and the others of us (who) are in the
same line of the half blood," all of Middleborough, gathered on 9 October 1746
and signed a second (quitclaim) deed releasing their inheritance rights in
Samuel's estate to their half-brother Anthony. Samuel and Anthony lived in
Cornwall, Connecticut.

The signers of the deed were: Benjamin Booth,
John Booth, Isaiah Booth, Naomi (Booth) and her husband Thomas Pierce, Nathaniel
Staples (husband of Rachel Booth, indicating that Rachel died prior to this
date) and Ephraim Reynolds and his wife Else Reynolds. All of these signers were
cited above as the known children of Benjamin Booth, with two exceptions: Hannah
Booth is absent and the Reynolds couple is present. It seems Hannah died without
issue prior to this date. Another possibility is that one of the two Reynolds is
an heir of Hannah Booth.

Sources Not Listed Above:

Malcolm A. Young, John 1 Booth of Marshfield
and Scituate, Massachusetts: Servant and Planter, NEHGR, Vol 159, July
2005Malcolm A.Young, The Two
Wives of Benjamin Booth of Early Scituate and Middleborough, Massachusetts,
The American Genealogist, Vol 74, July 1999

Eugene Stratton, History of Plymouth Colony
It's History and People, 1986

2 comments:

Interesting. I'm a descendant of Naomi Booth and Thomas Pierce too. I think I may have read about this (Mary Sutton and the Booth brothers) in a book about Plymouth Colony having no idea it was my great X ? grandparents. I also worked for the fire dept in Scituate for about 20 years having no idea I was direct line descendant of some of its earliest settlers. Whadyaknow? Thanks for sharing.

This is awesome! I am just enthralled with the stories you have uncovered. I am a direct descendant of John and Elizabeth (my 9th Great Grandfather and Grandmother) and also Benjamin Sr., Ben Jr. etc. My fathers name is Booth. Thank you for your hard work to compile all the bits information into a neat and tidy work of art!Sue Nielsen

About Me

I'm a Massachusetts native, a wife, mother of three and a genealogy nut. I work at a Senior Center planning activities and trips. My other loves include crafting, home decorating, reading, my three rescue dogs, and the Red Sox and the Boston Bruins. Email: Please contact me at: tessiecami(at)gmail(dot)com. If you're not a computerized robot, you'll know where to put the "at" sign and "dot." Thank you!